Paper Jack-o-Lanterns

Phee and I have been a little lazy in the arts and crafts department lately. She's been so tired with the adjustment to the new preschool.  Her little head is so full of info. We've had family in town and with our crazy schedules, too, we just haven't had the time or energy to do projects lately.

But with Halloween approaching, I decided it was time to make some decorations and get back into the swing of things. I created this simple jack-o-lantern project for us to do last night. Phee loved it! She loved it so much, she said goodnight to the pumpkins on her way to bed last night.

{my favorite of Phee's three pumpkins}

I used a large clip art pumpkin and then created different eyes, noses and mouths for Phee to use to make her own jack-o-lantern faces. She couldn't hardly wait for me to get the pieces cut out. She played with them, making silly faces, while I got everything ready to go.

I made piles of each facial feature. One at a time, she chose a set of eyes for each face, then a nose and a mouth. That was the only direction I gave her. She did all the placement on the pumpkin herself.

The jack-o-lanterns came out really cute. The features are all basic and nice. There aren't any scary faces here. This is a great way to "carve" pumpkins with a toddler and let them create their own masterpiece with out any of the sharp tools or gooey pumpkin guts. Plus, they're super cute decorations for the house.

Download the PDF.

Here's another fun paper pumpkin craft we used to decorate!

{Phee wanted her pumpkins all together instead of spread around the house}

What sort of decorations do your little ones like to put up around the house for Halloween?